Jack Holloway is a prospector on Zara XXII,
con­tract­ing for the giant ZaraCorp.
On one momentous day,
he is fired,
discovers a huge seam of sunstones worth trillions,
and meets the first members of a new species, the fuzzies.
Since he was fired before he discovered the sunstones,
he now has an en­force­able claim—and he’s a disbarred lawyer,
so you can bet he’s following through.
The fuzzies are delightful and they’re pretty smart—so smart that they might just be sapient.
And if they are, that’s a huge problem for ZaraCorp,
since the fuzzies would own the planet and the profits.
Even if Holloway didn’t have the sunstone claim
and the po­ten­tial­ly sapient fuzzies,
he would never be ZaraCorp’s favorite person
because Holloway can be a major jerk,
who delights in getting under people’s skin.

Fuzzy Nation is a “reboot” of H. Beam Piper’s novel, Little Fuzzy.
It’s a fun read, with an en­ter­tain­ing if ex­as­per­at­ing lead character.